Fast forward a few years into the clarity of adulthood and here is what really happened...
My parents were musicians. They were successful in that they had a gig nearly every weekend and on week nights they were at the music school teaching until late in the night. Coming from a big family this meant that I was ‘minded’ by my older siblings who were teenagers. What my parents didn’t know was that as soon as they left the house, the party started. The stereos were turned up to 11 and on the set list was Gentle Giant, Baard, Led Zeppelin and any other progressive rock of the day.
In the summer I would go outside and spend the entire night looking at the stars, away from the noise. But in the winter it was too cold, so I spent the time in my closet, banging my head against the wall.
As a young child, being left in the hands of teenagers experimenting with drugs and stereos left me feeling anxious about being unsafe – period. I felt unsafe, not inferior.
Until I realised the truth of my childhood, I carried the labels ... sensitive, anxious, inferiority complex
What I know today is this:
I am empathic – this makes me sensitive to my world, especially my immediate surroundings. I have had to work with an expert over the past year to define what feelings are mine and what feelings I’m reading from others and taking on as mine. My ability to sense what others feel is what makes me successful in my work and is ultimately a strength. My time gazing at the stars was my strength to overcome, my creativity shining through. Before I even turned 10, I was learning coping skills and I ultimately did survive my childhood and it ultimately did make me stronger, despite the professional analysis.
So why do I choose to open up the pathology of my childhood to you today? Because every single one of us has been told something by a health care professional that we believe to be true. Maybe it’s that we’re ‘depressed’ or that we have a ‘dis-ease’ of some kind.
Life is ‘dis-ease’ – we all have it. In a way, it’s normal. It’s all in how we cope with it and think about ourselves that determines what the label should be. We all have the choice to carry one label – survivor. The best path to achieving this is doing a deep dive analysis of you. Forgive yourself for the ‘issues’ you’ve developed in this stressful, demanding and at times impossible to understand world we live in.
When it comes to how you show up in the world, before you consult the professionals, move forward with a crystal clear vision of who you really are and why – because only you really know.
Most importantly - forgive anyone who you think contributed to your ‘issues’ because in reality, it is understanding what you believed about the situation and how you responded that created the ‘dis-ease’.